A winning day for the blog with the only selection MENDIP EXPRESS running a good race to be 3rd and taking the place money for our eachway wager, returning a £10 profit on the day. As they crossed the Melling Road heading for the 2nd-last fence, I was hopeful of a stronger finish and perhaps a win, but On The Fringe showed his class and ran on strong.
Overall, it was a good day for punters as there were 3 winning hot fav's in Cue Card, Annie Power and On The Fringe. For me, the highlight of the day was CUE CARD winning the Betfred Bowl and showing that he'd almost certainly have won the Gold Cup had he not fallen at the 3rd-last fence. My assessment of the race is that CUE CARD did not have to run anywhere near his best to win this race, and he didn't as he made numerous jumping errors yet merely had to be shaken-up to win.This race puts the Gold Cup form into perspective, as there's no way that Don Cossack ran to 182 when winning the Gold Cup. Annie Power was the only horse that finished that stayed the 2m4f trip in the Grade 1 Aintree Hurdle, and the win proved nothing. Had The New One not fallen we may have seen a closer race.
We have another full day of top class racing today. The opening 2m4f handicap hurdle run at 1:40pm looks very tough to solve, and there are a couple of horses from my alert list running in Ibis Du Rheu and San Benedeto, and both are ridden by 5lb claimers. Of the pair, I prefer San Benedeto as he's a very genuine horse who always seem to give his best.
I'm going to give the Grade 1 Novices hurdle over 2-mile at 2:15pm a miss, but it should go to Limini who is the race-fav. The next race is more interesting, the 3m1f Grade 1 Mildmay Novices Chase where it is no surprise to see Festival winner Un Temps Pour Tout as the 2/1 fav. Those who read my assessment of that race will know that I have taken the odds of 50/1 on this horse to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup next March, and he has the strongest form in this race (in my opinion). At the odds, I cannot advise a win wager (as my rule is no advised wagers at odds under 9/4) on Un Temps Pour Tout, but there are 3 places eachway in this 8-runner race and I do like the chance of Henri Parry Morgan who did not run at Cheltenham, but looks very exciting. Henri Parry Morgan is as long as 16/1 (5th odds a place) with Paddy Power and Stan James, and that looks generous.
The 2m4f Melling Chase at 3:25pm will almost certainly go to Vautour, who looks to be almost unbeatable at the moment. He's a bit below Cue Card on my ratings, but not by much.
The Topham Chase at 4:05pm is always one of the highlights of the season, and this year looks like being a classic. A huge field of 30 runners make this a tough race in which to find the winner. Looking at past winners, it seems that you need to concentrate on those above 10st 7lb, in other words the top-10 in the handicap. The soft ground will be against a few of these, and LTO winner La Vaticane ticks a lot of boxes. He is unexposed, likes soft ground and is also a prominent runner and this race will be run at some pace and you don't want to be on a hold-up horse. Odds of 25/1 with quarter-odds a place to 5-places with Bet Victor, Ladbrokes and Coral look very generous.
The last couple of races on the card look tough to find the winner, and so I'm going to stick to having a wager on LA VATICANE.
Selection
Aintree 4:05pm LA VATICANE, £5 eachway @ 25/1 (Bet Victor, Ladbrokes and Coral all go quarter-odds a place 1,2,3,4,5)
Thank you so much for this post on Aintree Festival. The fest looks great. When I was in college I too used to attend such events at local party venues in NYC with my friends but now it’s been a long time I haven’t attended such event. I will make plans with my friends quite soon.
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